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Nuclear and coal energy in ‘cloud computing’

Apple, Twitter, Microsoft using ‘dirty’ cloud technology: Greenpeace, By Sheila Dabu Nonato, Postmedia News April 17, 2012 Cloud computing — the rapidly expanding practice of delivering data and applications over the Internet — is being fuelled by “dirty” energy, including coal and nuclear power, with some industry leaders like Facebook, Google and Yahoo leading the way in making the technology greener, while other big names such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Twitter are lagging behind, Greenpeace says in a report released Tuesday.
The report How Clean is Your Cloud? suggests that three of the largest
Internet technology companies — Amazon, Apple and Microsoft — are
“rapidly expanding without adequate regard to source of electricity,
and rely heavily on dirty energy to power their clouds.”

It grades the giants on their use of renewable energy, energy
efficiency, transparency and use of coal and nuclear power, finding
some are doing their best, while others received an ‘F’ grade for
their efforts.

The environmental group said there is a “growing split” within the
high-tech industry between companies taking steps to power their
clouds with clean energy, such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo, and
companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Amazon “who lag behind by
choosing to build their growing fleets of data centres using coal and
nuclear energy.”
The report pointed to efforts by Yahoo and Google as leaders in
“prioritizing” access to renewable energy in their expansion of cloud
technology and lauded Facebook for constructing its latest data
centre, in Sweden, that can be fully powered by renewable energy……
Cloud technology enables users to communicate, watch movies or TV,
listen to music, work and share photos without saving information onto
their hard drive or local network.

Instead, users access cloud data over the Internet via a provider,
with the information being delivered from data centres around the
world. These centres are located in countries such as Ireland,
Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands as well as several U.S. states,
the report said.

Greenpeace alleges some of these data centres are powered by the
“dirtiest sources of electricity, supplied by some of the dirtiest
utilities on the planet” such as gas, coal and nuclear power….. It
suggested Amazon’s cloud technology has relied upon coal (33.9 per
cent) and nuclear power (29.9 per cent). It gave the company a grade
of ‘F’ for energy transparency, renewable energy and green
advocacy…….
The report suggested that Apple relied upon coal (55.1 per cent) and
nuclear power (27.8 per cent) and therefore received ‘D’ grades in
energy transparency, energy efficiency, renewable energy and advocacy.

As for Microsoft, Greenpeace said it used 39.3 per cent coal and 26
per cent nuclear power for its cloud technology, earning ‘C’ grades
for energy transparency and energy efficiency.

Microsoft Canada declined to comment on the report.

Twitter used about 35.6 per cent coal technology and 12.8 per cent
nuclear energy to power its cloud, the report suggested and received a
grade of ‘F’ in energy transparency and energy efficiency….
Greenpeace gave Google ‘B’ grades for energy transparency, and for
energy efficiency and greenhouse-gas mitigation. The report said
Google drew 28.7 per cent and 15.3 per cent of its electricity on coal
and nuclear sources, respectively. Google recieved an ‘A’ for
renewables and advocacy.
http://www.canada.com/technology/Apple+Twitter+Microsoft+using+dirty+cloud+technology+Greenpeace/6472665/story.html#ixzz1sQhCtyoG

April 18, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, ENERGY